When I was eight years old, my dream was to dedicate my life to helping the poor.

 

During my young life, I had already experienced civil war, evacuation from our home in Battambang, four years of forced internment in the Khmer Rouge labor camps, as well as a risky escape from what was my homeland.

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We had experienced famine and a reign of terror that during the period 1975 to 1979 killed more than 2 million people. Four of those who lost their lives were my beloved sisters. By the grace of God, my parents, my two brothers, and I survived these infamous years in the "killing fields". At the age of eight, my family and I were granted refugee status and permission to settle in the United States.

 

My life as a refugee was marked by turmoil.  Everything was new, strange and scary at the same time. I felt different. Especially different compared to the other children. Not only did I look different as an Asian, but as a refugee child, I also lacked many things in my life, be it clothes, school meals or opportunities. In addition, I could not read, write or speak the new language (English), was without experience and guidance in the American culture, and therefore felt isolated and alone for much of my childhood.  

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My family started life all over again from scratch. Our first and only goal was to survive in the new country. My parents, who were once renowned teachers in Cambodia, took on odd jobs to put food on the table. Dad worked and cleaned toilets at the gas station late into the night and my mother took care of geriatric patients as their personal assistant. 

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My brothers and I went to school with the goal of learning and adapting to the American culture as best we could. Little by little, our lives began to improve materially, and despite other challenges related to being refugees, we began to thrive as a family.

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Since the years in the 1980s, a lot of good things have happened in my life. I have started my own family and lived in Norway for almost 30 years. For over 25 of these years, I have been able to work in an organization that assists poor and neglected people in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. As international program manager, I have been privileged and been able to participate in the designing of effective projects that have both given people the opportunity to create sustainable, dignified lives for themselves and their families, while also sharing the hope that exists in Jesus Christ!

 

Personally, I have met hundreds of individuals: children, adults and the elderly. I have been able to listen to their challenges and show compassion, mutually shared life experiences, as well as cry together from both sorrow and joy.

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The amazing thing is that today most of these people live good, sustainable and resilient lives with hope for the future! 

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I am both humbled and grateful to have contributed to their journeys and to the fact that their dreams have come true! I realized too that my dream as an eight-year-old Cambodian refugee girl has never left me. It has shaped me into the person that I am today and what I experience as my mission in life.

 

After 25 years of focusing on Eastern Europe, the time has come to turn my focus back home to work among my own people. The experiences and knowledge I have gained over the years in Eastern Europe is now being put to good use in Cambodia!

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Will you help me and the Stilt House so that we, together, can make many dreams come true?

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